daisy chains and chocolate frogs
by yourbcky
Summary: He knows she's a witch long before she does. Slight AU.


**Okay, so I decided to split To Die by Your Side up into oneshots, just because knowing it would eternally incomplete would bother me.**

* * *

Lily Evans was a witch. Not in the fairytale, green skinned, warty nosed kind of way that were in all of his picture books, but an honest to Merlin, able to do magic witch.

James was sure of it. After many hours of observation, he was convinced that the weird red head in his class at school was not an ordinary Muggle. Another thing he was sure of, was that Evans had no idea about what she actually was.

The suspicion had started the first time he'd seen her on the playground at their primary school. She'd been sitting at the edge of the faded tarmac, her hands busy making daisy chains as she chatted with a girl a few years older than she was. As he'd watched (she had nice hair and pretty eyes, he couldn't help himself) Evans had let go of the daisy chain in order to gesture with her hands and the flowers had stayed floating in the air.

"Lily," the older girl had shrieked, drawing the attention of the small gathering of people who were playing football. The red head had immediately dropped the flowers into her lap and rolled her eyes. "Mummy told you not to do that."

"Stop being so over dramatic, Tuney. No one saw." Evans had answered, letting the daises fall to the floor as she got to her feet, brushing the grass from her skirt. As she'd walked back towards their classroom, she'd caught him looking at her and she'd hurried into the building, glancing nervously back at him as she reached the door.

—

From that point on, he'd made it a priority to keep an eye on her. Not because he liked her, he didn't; she was bossy, and a know-it-all, and she went out of her way to outdo him whenever possible purely because she knew it annoyed him. He did it because he'd never met a Muggleborn before and because he was an extremely curious individual.

The next indicator that Evans wasn't like the other kids in their class had been the day that she'd unwittingly changed the colour of his pencil case from blue to red when the greasy haired, hook nosed boy that sat opposite them in English had made fun of her hair. She'd politely asked him if he'd washed recently and James had tried desperately not to laugh.

He'd heard from Jessie Daniels that she'd spent their entire morning break in the girls' toilets crying because she felt guilty. He'd tried to make her feel better by offering her his special green crayon in History and had been pleasantly surprised when she'd quietly accepted.

James had gone home that afternoon with a spring in his step and a grin on his lips. When his parents had commented on his pencil case as he'd been attempting his maths homework (why did Muggle stuff have to be so bloody complicated?), he had told them that it was his fault and that he didn't want to change it.

—

Lily stared at the bright red steam engine, her eyes wide and her mouth open. Behind her, her parents were gazing around the platform, their focus shifting incredibly quickly as they attempted to drink everything in. Beside them, Petunia glared at her surroundings and scuffed her feet against the platform as she grumbled about 'having to see the freak off'.

A greasy, dark haired boy, who looked a lot like the one who used to pick on her in primary school, pushed past her. He turned to glare at her when his shoulder hit hers and his eyes widened briefly until she frowned at him. He recovered quickly, sneering nastily at her before stalking after a tall, rail thin woman with hair the same colour as his pulled back into a scraggly bun. The pair of them were heading towards the front of the train and so she span on her heel, determined to stay as far away from the boy as possible.

Saying goodbye to her parents wasn't as difficult as she'd been dreading. That might have been due to Petunia nagging their mum to take her shopping so much that Mrs Evans had sighed in resignation. Lily made it easy for them by giving each of them a quick hug, even her dratted sister, and hopped onto the train, her trunk in tow.

As she was searching for an empty compartment, she'd come across one with two black haired boys who looked about her age. It was the emptiest one she'd found, so she slid the door open and poked her head in, her eyes widening in shock when her brain registered who one of the boys was.

"Potter?" She demanded, stepping fully into the compartment as the train lurched sideways. James Potter, the bane of her last year in primary school, grinned at her and straightened in his seat.

"You made it then, Evans." Was all he said, and she slowly sank onto the bench cushion as the train lurched again. She narrowed her eyes at him and he held up his hands, offering her one that was holding out a purple box towards her.

"You knew? About all of this?" She asked, hesitantly accepting the box and studying it. When she opened it, the frog inside jumped out and hit the compartment door in its attempt to escape.

"Rotten luck. They're usually more docile than that at first." The other boy commented as the frog leapt from the door to the wall and then to the closed window. He pulled a wand out of his sleeve and waved it in the direction of the chocolate. It slowly floated back towards her, its legs kicking in its attempt to jump away and it landed in her lap. "Here."

"Thanks." She said distractedly, her eyes still on the boy's wand.

"Sorry I didn't say anything, Evans." Potter said, drawing her attention back to him. "But there are a bunch of rules about saying anything to Muggles and my parents would have got in a lot of trouble if I had. Muggles are people who can't do magic." He explained at her confused frown.

"But you knew about me?" The other boy opened another chocolate frog, held a card in front of his face for a few seconds and then threw it at Potter.

"I guessed," he corrected, picking up the card and pulling a face in disgust. He put it on a pile next to him and folded his arms across his chest. "I saw the daisies."

Immediately knowing what he was talking about, her shoulders slumped and she gave them a sheepish smile. "I couldn't help it. Sometimes it just happens."

"'S'accidental magic." The long haired boy grinned. "Happens to the best of us. I'm Sirius, by the way. Sirius Black." He offered her his hand, and she took it, smiling back at him.

"I'm Lily." She jerked her head in Potter's direction. "You no doubt know my last name." Sirius' lips quirked upwards, and he coughed to hide his smile.

"So, Evans. Before you came barging in here, I was asking Sirius which house he wanted to be in. Where do you want to go?"

"Gryffindor."


End file.
